Failure to Thrive
by doodlebug-nimbus
Summary: (One-shot) What happens when junctioning goes wrong?


Squall didn't know what to think of the creature that lay before her party in the grassy fields surrounding them. It wasn't a monster, it wasn't an animal, it was something else entirely.

Two glossy eyes, white pupils bleeding into dark brown irises, stared up into the sky above them. They were lost in a sea of multicolored, veiny flesh that had melted and disorganized into something beyond recognition, the body shape being only likened to that of a nondescript blob. Faint lanugo decorated its pathetic form. And a massive maw, filled with broken, jagged teeth, sat right where its abdomen would presumably be. It was drooling.

The only clue that they were looking at a student and not some laboratory abomination was the broken sword near one of its numerous, gnarled paws stemming from its underside.

"What is it?" Squall said, disgust souring her voice. Selphie kicked the twitching mass with one of her feet, frowning. Rinoa didn't do anything, only staring at it with horror discoloring her face.

Quistis bent over as if to inspect it more closely, but then, deciding against doing so, straightened her back. "Looks to be a student." She elaborated upon the sight of the other girls glaring at her. "I don't know what happened to them."

"A glitch in the system," Selphie said to herself, then shook her head. "I mean, I don't know what that really means, but I've heard it before, and I feel like it fits here."

Rinoa nudged the mass and brought a hand to her chin. She pouted, visibly concerned for the creature. "Are they even…alive anymore?"

As if to answer her question, the thing emitted a series of clicking gurgles. Black ooze seeped from the mouth.

"Uh, I guess so." Selphie looked away in thought. She sniffled momentarily, furrowing her brow. "We're not going to keep them alive, are we? I think that's kinda cruel if we do."

_I can think of plenty of crueler things than this_, Squall bitterly thought. She felt a scowl form on her face, though she corrected it in time for no one else to see.

"I suppose so." Quistis motioned toward Squall's gunblade. "Feel up to it?"

Squall nodded, reaching for it. Her expression was cool, unfeeling. "I've done worse."

...

She looked back on the memory with a new emotion, beyond revulsion, hatred, or pity. Regret—regret for the gunblade she did not have with her. It was still in the tent with the other girls.

Because she thought everything would go along just as it usually did.

If she had it with her now, perhaps she could've saved herself from this new, terrible existence. Even with her hands snapped into incorrect angles, even with her fingers now being elongated, flat strands of lime skin, she told herself she'd find a way to press the blade into her monstrously long neck, and slide it. She'd have to, it would be the only way she could be free.

_It hurts._

She had tried to move, to scream, to do anything that indicated to anyone that she was still here. But she couldn't. Forced to look up into the soft, baby blue sky devoid of a wisp of a cloud, the only thing that happened was the rupturing of more exposed blood vessels and the spring breeze cooling the liquids pooling around her mangled body and her bowels, of which were spilling out of a massive tear in her abdomen.

_I can't—the others—they don't know I'm—_

At last she wrenched her mouth open enough to let out a shriek. She startled herself at how inhuman it was, sounding more like a warped, gargled version of Quetzalcoatl's cry whenever it was called upon. But then she remembered.

_Quetzalcoatl never showed up…_

They never taught her this. They had never mentioned anything about the dangers of junctioning, ever, nor anything about properly handling GFs. _Did they deliberately withhold such information? What else are they hiding?_

She rocked back and forth on her protruding spine, unable to get up and adequately express her sudden rage. If only she realized this when she was still a person, when she could still talk to other people, when she was right there with them—

She returned to the present, deciding that reminiscing was only going to make her hurt more. By now, the blood painting her figure was dried, crusty, as slight, awkward thrusts of her ribs suggested flaking. She imagined what she looked like, imagining herself as she felt.

A monstrosity stared back at her in her mind's eye.

_Maybe if I just stop thinking at all I'll feel better_. She resigned herself to staring up at what was high above her head.

The sky, now a delicate light blue-violet gradient that lapsed into a sunburnt yellow toward the horizon, mocked her. It suggested days of sappy romances, where budding couples would share their newborn passions in the form of lively dances under the orange setting sun, days of peaceful solitude where people would recline under the shades of large, singular trees in fields of flowers, indulging in the existential calm that played in the air, days of sweet innocence as children were called back from their endless days of fun for dinners with their loving families.

It suggested lots of things that Squall would never be able to see.

She recalled her earlier days, back when she first arrived at school, where she told herself that once no one needed her anymore she'd retire and finally appreciate life at her own pace.

If she could've laughed, she would have.

She wondered, briefly, if the others had noticed she hadn't returned by normal curfew time. They had agreed on her returning to "base" once streaks of purple infiltrated the sky—if she went out to train alone. And she kept to her word, until now.

...

"You can't save her."

"Shut up! I don't want to hear it!"

Selphie wasn't even watching the scene, instead sitting far away in the fields in the fetal position, shuddering, bawling to herself. She cried harder at the vicious sound of grinding cracks of bones.

_Magic doesn't work on these cases_, Quistis thought to herself, stiff with a mixture of panic, queasiness, and misery. _Nothing works on these cases…_

"Rinoa! You're making her worse!" she shouted, only realizing afterward that screaming was going to do nothing for their situation.

Rinoa, a sort of wild, desperate frenzy in her dark eyes, shot a bewildered look at her before turning her attention back to the heap lying before her. "But I—I have to fix her! Please, just let me—"

Quistis grabbed her arms and pulled her away from the bleeding husk that looked to be a painful splicing of Quetzalcoatl and their Squall. Pulling her up to her face and looking her in the eyes, though unable to maintain her composure at the sight of Rinoa's tears, she began to sob too, her grasp on her arms beginning to weaken. She didn't even seem to notice that her glasses had fallen off.

"I—goddammit, we can't save her. She's too far gone, I—you know what it is? I-it's interdimensional displacement…" She glanced away and let Rinoa go, her sentence forever hanging as she buried her face in her hands, her tears now staining her cheeks.

Rinoa was growing delirious from what had become of Squall. She blinked back clouds in her eyes as she returned to the husk, trembling at the sight of her bloodshot blue eyes sliding over to her.

"What did you say?" Her delayed response was broken and hushed, tinged with the spark of encroaching madness. She peered past her shoulder, boring holes into Quistis' back. "What did you just say?"

Quistis didn't answer immediately. She sniffled a few times and cleared her throat, then said, "Interdimensional…displacement—it's when—Squall didn't junction correctly…" She broke apart into another fit of sobs, though she cut them off before she descended completely into hysterics. She needed to be the strongest bond in the team now, she couldn't give in to tragedy. She couldn't let anyone remember her like this. "We…they—they never told us to discuss it with the student body…"

"What? You mean this might've been prevented had you and the other—oh, Squall..." Rinoa hovered a hand over one of Squall's twisted wing-hands, and she offered a weak smile as Squall latched onto her wrist with two of her remaining human fingers. She turned her head ever so slightly, though hideous crunches still erupted from her ropey neck as she did so. Her milky, bleary eyes glistened in the early sun's rays. Rinoa choked out, "I'm so sorry."

Quistis looked to where Selphie was sitting, still condensed into a ball of anguish. The gunblade was by her side, and as the blade glinted brilliantly in the morning light, Quistis knew what she had to do.

She came over, trying to keep her voice as calm as she could. "Selphie, can I take it?"

Selphie didn't say a word, but she pushed the gunblade toward Quistis' feet with one of her hands, a few muffled sniffs escaping her in the meanwhile.

"Thank you. It will be over soon, I promise."

She walked back over to where Rinoa sat, and locked eyes with Squall. Rinoa stared up at her, Squall's unhinged jaw creaked a hint more open.

"Rinoa," she said carefully, kneeling to present her the gunblade. Rinoa took it, slight hesitation palpable in her fingers. As she got to her feet and aimed the weapon at Squall's head, her fingers shook its hilt. "Do you feel up to it?"

There was a pause. The weapon wavered in her grasp.

Squall's eyes moved toward Rinoa, back to Quistis, then toward Rinoa again.

Rinoa reaffirmed her grip on Squall's gunblade, resting the blade's tip directly on her forehead. Her hand slid up to sit underneath the barrel.

"I'll do it. For you."

A very faint "thank you" could be heard before Rinoa pulled the trigger.

...

A/N - by god i will turn every male RPG protagonist into a woman...

but uh, yeah, i've always wondered what would happen if junctioning didn't "work" properly...or at least, this is my take on it.

cc appreciated!


End file.
